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Don't panic!; or, Yes, you can still eat red meat
If you follow health news at all, whether that's online or just catching the evening news on television, you've probably heard about this study, just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine (doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.2287). While the media has been making much of the story, acting almost as if eating red meat of any kind will make you drop dead....

Yes, You Can Eat Red Meat
(Just Not Every Day)
My patients are always saying that they can't eat healthy because they like to eat red meat. Well, I like eating a good steak as much as the next person and I do. I don't eat red meat that often – probably about 5 times a month or so. I do eat leaner cuts and Dr. Gourmet recipes reflect these healthier choices.

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Can Red Meat be Part of a Cholesterol-Lowering Diet?

Red meat consumption has been linked with poor cholesterol scores, breast,
colon and rectal cancers, increased risk of diabetes and other chronic
diseases. For a long time when I talked to my patients
about eating healthier they would immediately tell me that they would
stop eating red meat. This is because in the past, all red meats,
including beef, lamb, pork, venison and buffalo, have been largely
lumped together as all being equally bad for you.

In the last few years people have been looking more closely at red
meat in an effort to determine if some red meats are better than
others, and the good news is that recent studies have found that
processed meats, such as bacon, salami, or hot dogs seem to be more
closely linked to an increased risk of heart disease and diabetes
than lean meats (Bite, 05/19/10).

In a study reported on in the American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition (2012;95(1):9-16), researchers at Penn State compared four different
diets on the cholesterol scores of 36 men and women between the ages
of 30 and 65. All of the participants were nonsmokers who had no history
of heart disease or diabetes, but all had high LDL cholesterol scores.

The 36 participants followed each of the four different diets for five
weeks each and took a one-week break in between each diet. Each participant's
diet was specifically designed to maintain their weight while still
meeting the macronutrient requirements of each type of diet, and
all meals were provided by the researchers.

One of the diets the participants followed is what is known as the gold
standard of cholesterol-lowering diets: the DASH (Dietary Approaches
to Stop Hypertension). It focuses on very low levels of saturated
fats, low dietary cholesterol and high levels of fruits and vegetables,
legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds along with moderate amounts
of lean protein from mostly poultry and seafood.

A second diet was
described by the researchers as a "Healthy American Diet" which
included full-fat instead of low-fat dairy products, more oil and
butter than the DASH diet, and more refined grains. Two additional
diets were designed to be healthy but also include increased amounts
of protein from lean red meat. The breakdown for these diets are
as follows:

% calories from fat

% calories from saturated fat

% calories from protein

grams of beef/day

Healthy American Diet (HAD)

33

12

17

20

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)

27

6

18

28

Beef in an Optimal Lean Diet (BOLD)

28

6

19

113

Beef in an Optimal Lean Diet plus additional protein (BOLD+)

28

6

27

153

At the start of the study and at the end of each diet period their cholesterol
levels were tested. The researchers discovered that compared to the
Healthy American Diet, the DASH, BOLD and BOLD+ diets all decreased
the participants' LDL cholesterol by a minimum of 4.4%. In fact,
the BOLD+ diet - with the highest amount of daily lean beef intake
- yielded the greatest decrease in LDL: 5.5%. Similarly, the BOLD+
diet led to a greater decrease in total cholesterol, of 4.6%, while
the DASH diet only reduced total cholesterol by 3.8%.

What this means for you

Good news! This study reinforces previous studies that indicate that
red meat can certainly be part of a healthy diet. The two
critical items to keep in mind are: first, that all three of the
test diets had a very low percentage of calories from saturated fat
(this works out to about 13 grams of saturated fat - about 120 calories
- in a 2,000 calorie per day diet) and second, the beef in these
diets was lean. The
lean cuts of beef used in this study were select-grade top round,
chuck shoulder pot roast, and 95% lean ground beef, and were all
cooked using little added fat.